Experimental Demonstration of a Terahertz Frequency Reference based on Coherent Population Trapping

Mathieu Collombon (1) , Cyril Chatou (1) , Gaétan Hagel (1) , Jofre Pedregosa-Gutierrez (1) , Marie Houssin (1) , M. Knoop (1) , Caroline Champenois (1)

1 PIIM - Physique des interactions ioniques et moléculaires

A novel protocol of interrogation based on coherent population trapping in an N-level scheme atomic system leads to dark resonances involving three different photons. An ensemble of several hundreds of radiofrequency-trapped ions is probed by three lasers simultaneously locked onto the same optical frequency comb, resulting in high-contrast spectral lines referenced to an atomic transition in the THz domain. We discuss the cause of uncertainties and limitations for this method and show that reaching a sub-kHz resolution is experimentally accessible via this interrogation protocole.

Domaines: Physique Quantique [quant-ph]; Physique Atomique [physics.atom-ph]

Mathieu Collombon, Cyril Chatou, Gaétan Hagel, Jofre Pedregosa-Gutierrez, Marie Houssin, et al.. Experimental Demonstration of a Terahertz Frequency Reference based on Coherent Population Trapping. 2019. ⟨hal-02064988v1⟩